Solar Motorbike From SunRed

This solar powered motorbike design by SunRed won a prize at the Barcelona Motor Show for its innovative technology. It’s a concept at the moment, but the company will be making a prototype soon.

It’s not a direct solar-power machine; the panels top up batteries when parked. This is because the panels fold up to give a large surface area (over 3 square metres), but fold down out of the way when the bike is on the go. Leave it in the sun, and when you get back to it you can fold up the panels and be on your way.They claim that it will have a range of 13 miles, and should reach 30mph. For city journeys this is perfect, not many people commute further than that in urban areas, and you should be able to charge up during the day anyway. The motor sits directly on the rear axle, so not much energy is wasted in the drive train, and is brushless to reduce friction.